Kenyan Judge Wins International Worst Ruling 'Award'

Last year’s International award of the world’s worst court ruling for women’s rights has been ‘awarded’ to a Malindi High Court judge after his decision to free a man convicted of raping a 13-year-old. In his ruling to dismiss the case, the Judge said that the minor appeared willing to have sex with the man.

His verdict has now been voted was the worst, winning the Golden Bludgeon award by Women’s Link Worldwide, an international body of women in the legal fraternity.

Justice Said Juma Chitembwe on April 25, 2016 declined to hand a 20-year jail term to 24-year-old Martin Charo, even after evidence showed he defiled the girl between December 2011 and January 2012 in Kilifi County.

The judgment was named during the Gender Justice Uncovered Awards that distinguishes the best and worst court rulings on gender equality from all over the world. Chitembwe’s judgment was listed alongside 18 other worst cases.

In his ruling, Judge Chitembwe ruled that “It would be unfair to have the appellant serve 20 years behind bars yet PW1 [the minor victim] was after sex from him.”

Comments

What a disgrace! What if the girl was her daughter or grand-daughter, would he have ruled the same way? I would imagine protecting young people from sexual predators would seem to be a universally-held value, but evidently not as per 'judge' Chitembwe's judgement. I hope he got fired.

n his ruling to dismiss the case, the Judge said that the minor appeared willing to have sex with the man. This judge should not be a judge at all, the fact remains that the said minor has not reached the age of consent to have sex. The perpetrator should have had the common decency to leave the child alone and find a grownup woman am sure Kilifi is not lacking women, this judge should be locked up for not doing his job.

"The minor appeared willing to have sex with the man".Did this judge study law? Does statutory rape mean anything to him? Let give him the benefit of doubt and hear his defense,which I think will fall short of satisfying anyone with half a brain.
Send him to Kamiti and have some of those sex starved fellows have ago at him and see if some of them will say" he appeared to me willing".

Sauti Ugenini... you have me thinking now. Let's say that It was an adult woman who had had sex with a minor/boy,and the judge said he appeared willing,would your view be different. I raise this issue mindful of how teenage boys behave in general.Iam sure you are aware that some males will say he was lucky,and where are these women..."I want one". Basically when it comes to boys, the story changes.Why? And yes Iam aware that the law treats statutory rape equally regardless of the gender of the perpetrator ...

This worries me now...could our Kenyan law be vague on this issue? How is a "Minor" defined? How did this dim-wit of a lawyer arrive at this judgement? Might he have based his ruling on other previous judgements? There might be a deeper problem here.